The title track from Anna Tivel’s “Animal Poem” album is a tender bedtime story about the messiness of living.
Anna Tivel, a singer-songwriter from Portland, Oregon, has been recording and performing for more than a decade. Her seventh album Animal Poem was released in August 2025, and has been described as deep “with wisdom into the experience of existence, forgiveness, love for humanity, nature, and reconciliation with mortality.”
On the album, Tivel hoped to capture the spirit of people sitting on a porch playing songs for each other. And she accomplished that goal.
She explained, “Everyone in the studio made it feel so open, made it easy to forget technology and permanence and just play, messy and alive. It’s this vital mess that moves me when I listen now – ghost notes in the high register of the piano, melodic guitar and bass lines briefly interwoven, earthy cymbals breathing, my dog barking. . . . Most of what you hear is just people sitting together in a small room, listening and talking with tenderness and abandon.”
I love the album’s title track, where Tivel spins a number of lessons together into a tribute to living, presented as a poem that one may hear as a bedtime story.
Courage is a tired mom, milk crate and a cardboard sign, Trying to find a story for her daughter; This is how the world exists, let me spin it for you kid, In a way that’s easier to swallow.
Everyone is in a play, characters in constant pain, Reaching for a way to taste some beauty; You can be someone who loves, or you can be somebody else; That’s all there is, you breathe, then you’re not breathing.
Nina Simone performs Barry Gibb’s “To Love Somebody” at the Jazz à Juan jazz festival in Juan-les-Pins, Antibes, France in 1969.
In 2017, Barry Gibb was asked what was his favorite of all of the songs he had written. He reached back to a song that was released as a single fifty years earlier in 1967 to his wonderful track, “To Love Somebody.”
I’m not sure if anyone asked him about the number of great covers of the song, but certainly one of my favorite versions is the one by Nina Simone, who was born in North Carolina on February 21, 1933 as Eunice Kathleen Waymon.
Reportedly, Gibb wrote “To Love Somebody” with Otis Redding in mind. But unfortunately, Redding died before he had the chance to record “To Love Somebody.”
Nina Simone released a cover of “To Love Somebody” in 1971 on her album of the same name. But she was performing the song live long before that release. Simone does something different than Redding probably would have done. She definitely takes a different approach than the hit recording by Gibb’s Bee Gees.
Below, alone at the piano, she performs “To Love Somebody” at the Jazz à Juan jazz festival in Juan-les-Pins, Antibes, France in 1969. Unlike the Bee Gees version, her version never reaches the frenzy of passion that their original did.
Similarly, here she avoids the groove and rhythm of her own full-band 1971 release that also featured backing vocals. Here, instead, she brings a longing sadness to the tune. Check it out.
The title track to Allison Russell’s album “The Returner” is a powerful (and catchy) song about empowerment and loving yourself and others.
Allison Russell has followed up her outstanding solo debut album Outside Child (2021), showing no sophomore slump, taking us to new heights with the wonderful album The Returner (2023). In her solo work, she continues to explore what makes us human, facing trauma, and finding ourselves.
American Songwriter summarizes the new album as “a 10-song collection woven together with surprise, gratitude, pain and musical beauty the world has never quite seen before.” Ken Tucker of NPR explains that while Outside Child made “stirring music out of the harrowing details of Russell’s youth as a survivor of sexual abuse and homelessness,” The Returner features “songs about a more uplifting adulthood.” While there is some truth to that album comparison, it may be a little simplistic to draw a sharp line between the two albums that way. Both albums convey struggles and strengths that are not often encountered with such poetry and grace in pop music.
Regarding the title track of the album, Allison Russell creates music that sounds like a lost classic from the 1960s. When I first played the song, I felt like I had heard it many times, and I had to stop everything so my ears could give it my full attention. And then once you pay attention to the lyrics, you realize this song is really something special.
“The Returner” is about turning over a new leaf and finding a better and stronger person within yourself, despite the struggles and pain you’ve been through. It’s as inspiring as “We Will Rock You” or the theme from “Rocky,” with this fighter taking on something larger and darker and coming out on the other side.
In “The Returner,” the singer proclaims one of the most life-affirming things one may say: “I’m worthy.” But she is not keeping the newfound worthiness and strength for just herself; she aims to spread the power and the love to everyone she can. And that is what Russell does with these songs.
Goodbye, so long, farewell, all I’ve been; Ooh, oblivion, Throw me in the ocean, Ooh, see if I can swim; I’m wild again, I’m a star child again; I’ve come ten million miles, ooh, I’m burning; I’m a summer dream, I’m a real light beam, I’m worthy Of all the goodness and the love that the world’s gonna give to me; I’m a give it back ten times, people, are you ready? If you think you’re alone, hold on, I’m coming.
Check out “The Returner” from Allison Russell.
Russell incorporates different genres in her music, including elements from Americana, R&B, Country, Soul, and Folk. Even the lyrics to “The Returner” show her broad embrace of music, referencing jazz great John Coltrane and country legends the Carter Family in the same sentence: “I can’t think of a thing / That hasn’t been born of a dream / Like a love supreme / Like a circle unbroken.” Another example of the lack of limits on her music is that musicians on the album include Americana artist Brandi Carlile and Wendy & Lisa (Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman). The latter are known for their work with Prince in the 1980s.
As one may note from the results, Russell is not aiming to make ordinary music. Russell, who before these two albums was in Birds of Chicago and Our Native Daughters, highlights on the liner notes the importance of the studio where she recorded The Returner. She recorded the album in the same studio as Joni Mitchell’s Blue and Carole King’s Tapestry, two of the greatest singer-songwriter albums of all time. With such artists, Russell continues to carve out a significant place among the stars.
Allison Russell’s song “Nightflyer” is a powerful and beautiful song about strength and resilience in the face of trauma.
One of the outstanding songs of 2021 is Allison Russell’s “Nightflyer.” During some of the dark days of the pandemic, it was a comforting and powerful song of confronting dark days and going forward.
Allison Russell, who is French Canadian and lives in Nashville, released the album Outside Child, which includes “Nightflyer,” to wide acclaim in 2021. This solo debut followed her work with her husband and songwriting partner JT Nero called Birds Of Chicago.
In “Nightflyer,” the singer addresses her abuse and sings of her hope and resilience: “His soul is trapped in that room; /But I crawled back in my mother’s womb,/ Came back out with my gold and my greens, / Now I see everything.” The song is a powerful statement, inspired by Russell’s own journey in becoming a mother.
I’m the moon’s dark side, I’m the solar flare, The child of the earth, the child of the air; I am the mother of the evening star; I am the love that conquers all; Yeah, I’m a midnight rider, Stone bonafide night flyer; I’m an angel of the morning too, The promise that the dawn will bring you.
The rhythm and structure of the song echoes he gnostic poem “The Thunder: Perfect Mind,” which Russell read when she was sixteen and which stayed with her. Having suffered trauma, including an abusive stepfather, Russell has explained: I’ve been meditating on the nature of resilience, endurance, and grace more deeply since becoming a mother. I was trying to bridge the divide and embrace shame and my inner divinity equally with this piece.”
While the background gives some additional depth to the song, “Nightflyer” flies on its own wings even if you do not know anything about the inspirations. Check it out.
In 1964, Connie Smith recorded “Once a Day,” creating one of the perfect county records out of the song written by Bill Anderson.
Connie Smith’s 1964 recording of the song “Once a Day” is one of those perfect moments in country music. Smith is one of the great voices in country music, and here she has a perfect song. “Once a Day” was written by Bill Anderson specifically for Smith. The song features catchy music and country heartbreak wrapped up with a clever chorus that would be humorous if were not for the aching it describes.
Connie Smith released “Once a Day” on August 1, 1964 when Smith (born in Indiana in August 14, 1941) was barely twenty-three. According to Wikipedia, the record become the first number one debut on the Billboard Hot Country songs by a woman. It stayed at number one for eight weeks, a feat not duplicated by a female artist until Taylor Swift did it in 2012.
The clever hook in the song is that the singer misses a former love and cries only “once a day.” That does not sound too awful. But then she reveals that the “once a day” is “all day long.”
Once a day, all day long; And once a night from dusk ’til dawn; The only time I wish you weren’t gone, Is once a day, every day, all day long.
Below, a young Connie Smith performs “Once a Day” in 1965 on the WSM Nashville syndicated TV show The Bobby Lord Show. Check it out.
Smith, who is married to Marty Stuart, also played guitar on the hit recording of “Once a Day.” She recorded a number of wonderful songs through her career. But she never had a song that was as big of a hit as “Once a Day.”
Pas Souvent
“Once a Day” has been covered by artists such as Dean Martin and Van Morrison. After Smith initially released her original version, the song was so popular that Smith recorded a French version of the song.
Smith released the French version, “Pas Souvent,” credited to both Bill Anderson and French lyricist Pierre Delanoë, in 1966. Give it a listen.
Great stuff, no matter the language. Leave your two cents in the comments.
